Grandson Suspended

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Last person any of us would ever expect.

easy child and I were heading out of town to do aldi's shopping (20 miles away), fortunately the school got in touch with her before she left town.

Darrin took his swiss army knife to school. The kid who has never been in trouble in school once in all these years. The boy who stayed off of "red" all year and had acquired a ton of school dollars for the big auction of toys ect on the last day.

easy child called me right away upset, stunned, mad. I was a little surprised he had a pocket knife (easy child won't let the poor kid own a sling shot), but otherwise........ehh. She started thinking up punishments. I told her, hon, this is Darrin. I can guarantee you he is pretty humiliated and miserable right now. Not only has he found himself in the office for a serious offense......but he also had to endure a talking to by his principal.......and Mom is coming to pick him up because he is suspended. No auction for him. No last day party. Natural consequences were plenty in this case.

I happened to have Nichole on the other line. I told her. Her response?

"Awwwwww" (like you do when a kid does something cute LOL ) In honesty? I had laughed about it myself. Typical boy thing to do. Most especially in a rural area.

Principal could have gone off the deep end with this offense. Police could've been called (should have) and charges filed for bringing a weapon to school. But he believed Darrin when the boy told him he'd totally forgot he had it in his pocket. He'd discovered it on the bus when fishing something else out of his pocket. Another kid saw it and told on him to the bus driver who escorted him to the principal. Principal told easy child that Darrin's record speaks for itself.......and it was obvious he had not brought it to school with ill intentions. However, he did have to suspend him as per the rules. Then, seemingly concerned easy child might go overboard when she got Darrin home, he explained it's not uncommon......that he himself had been suspended for bringing a pocket knife to school as a kid. lol

Nice to see someone still has common sense.

Darrin, as predicted, was embarrassed, humiliated (due to the suspension), and devastated by not being able to do the auction and last day party tomorrow.

I don't think it's going to be an issue.

Only our family can take such a call and either think it's cute or funny. :rofl: Instead of freaking out about it. (as far as Darrin is concerned we take it as seriously as did the school)

The principal is always having to call the parents of some kid who forgot to leave his pocket knife at home. I think if he followed policy to the letter........there would be no more males in the school. LOL

Could you imagine how this would've went in a city?
 

witzend

Well-Known Member
That's so sad that he is missing out on so much. It's a tough lesson for such a minor offense. I hope that easy child will take your advice and let those consequences be the end of it. I remember we all used to say, "School consequences for school behavior, home consequences for home behavior."
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
I also feel sorry for him that he missed the auction when he'd worked so hard to save up his school dollars for it. They have mini auctions the end of each quarter.........but his saved most of his for the last (and biggest) one.

easy child did let natural consequences be the only punishment. All she did was explain why the rule was necessary and why it was such a big deal.

I'm also a big fan of "school consequences for school behavior". It worked far better than anything else.
 

1905

Well-Known Member
Can he save them for next year? They are still his, he can use them next time hopefully. He couldn't participate in the auction, but he still has the tickets. That is a shame, I think the punishment was too harsh, especially knowing the backstory- an honest mistake.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
I was going to say...good heavens, he is a boy! I think losing the auction is too harsh myself to be honest because he didnt do it with malice.

Cory did this very same thing back in 4th grade with Billy's Boy Scout knife only Cory didnt know it was actually a knife. He had never seen the knife part of it. All he saw were all the neat gadgets that game out...forks, spoons, scissors, ruler, all kinds of things. He took it to show and tell and they freaked out on him. It got worse after Cory had spent a year and a half in a wilderness camp where he was required to keep a pocket knife in his pocket at all times. He gets home and he had a very hard time breaking that habit. Many times he had to go into the office when he got to school and turn in his knife because he had realized it was in his pocket on the way to school.
 

Wiped Out

Well-Known Member
Staff member
I agree that the consequence doesn't fit the crime. It was an accident-to lose all of his well earned school dollars. Is he out of it because that was the day of the auction? Was it the last day of school?

I remember in kindergarten or first grade difficult child took a butcher knife to school. He had put it in his backpack (unbeknownst to us) so he could show someone after school at the after school program. Principal could have gone for expulsion. He wasn't suspended. The principal could tell that difficult child didn't mean to use it in a negative way. Still he received a good talking to and we started checking his backpack every day.
 

everywoman

Well-Known Member
easy child had the exact same thing happen at the exact same age. He and a friend were playing in his room. difficult child came in. Friend who was also a difficult child, took easy child's bs knife off of his dresser (easy child had just come home from a camping trip) and was waving it around. easy child took the knife, and put it in his pants drawer on his dresser. He wanted to hide it, so he put it in the pocket of the pair of cargo pants. He got to school, discovered it, took it to the teacher. He was recommended for expulsion (district policy) but it was all over in a few days.
 

nerfherder

Active Member
Poop happens. Right?

Sigh. When we lived back in NorCal in the People's Republic of Davis, RN mentioned in the homeschool playgroup that her husband was a knifemaker, Oldest Baby Viking had his own knife, whatever. One of the moms went off on how dangerous that was, and knives were dangerous, most people shouldn't have them, and she had no knives even in her kitchen because she was afraid the kids would hurt themselves, etc, etc...

She told us about this when she got home and asked a very important question.

"How does she open a watermelon?"
 

DDD

Well-Known Member
Great story, Nerf. We had the same circumstances and it was totally inadvertent...boys don't change jeans every day.
Around here, sigh, they call the police into it. It's stupid! DDD
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
LOL Nerfherder

easy child has warned me to not to forget to empty my purse before going through metal detectors. Darrin's Nana carries 3 different pocket knives at all times. And yes, they've all come in handy at one time or another.

I couldn't imagine even considering clearing the house out of all knives. wth? I didn't even do that back when Nichole was cutting. Wouldn't have done a bit of good. She usually used something totally innocent that she made into a sharp edge.

People kill me these days.
 
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